Download or read book My brothers have my back written by Lou Pepi and published by McFarland. This book was released on 2018-10-19 with total page 226 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In November 1969, what Time Magazine called the "largest battle of the year" took place less than two miles from the Vietnamese Demilitarized Zone. Three companies of Task Force 1-61 met 2,000-3,000 North Vietnamese. American forces fought for two days, inflicting heavy casualties and suffering eight killed. Late on November 12, it became evident that the American position could be overrun. Alpha Company was airlifted in darkness to reinforce a small hill in the jungle. Three hours later, well past midnight, the Americans were attacked by 1,500 NVA. There was a twist: A secret Vietcong document captured near Saigon urged intense action before November 14 in anticipation of the Vietnam War Moratorium Demonstrations set for November 15 in many cities in America. The Vietcong planned to inflict a stunning defeat in "an effort to get the fighting in step with the peace marchers." The author, a member of Alpha Company who rode in on the last helicopter, offers unique insights into the story of the men who fought those three days in 1969.

Download or read book Impact Zone written by Jim Brown and published by University of Alabama Press. This book was released on 2004-07-22 with total page 292 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Impact Zone is a distinctive book on the Vietnam War because it is told from the perspective of an artilleryman. The increasingly dangerous events Brown describes gain momentum as he progresses from one adventure to the next. Impact Zone is not only an important historical document of the Vietnam conflict but also a moving record of the personal and emotional costs of war."--Jacket.

Download or read book Demilitarized Zones written by Jan Barry and published by . This book was released on 1976 with total page 204 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Spies and Commandos written by Kenneth J. Conboy and published by . This book was released on 2000 with total page 368 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: During the Vietnam War, the U.S. sought to undermine Hanoi's subversion of the Saigon regime by sending Vietnamese operatives behind enemy lines. All the commandos were killed or captured, with many reporting false information. This book traces the rise and demise of this secret operation.

Download or read book U S Marines In Vietnam The Landing And The Buildup 1965 written by Dr. Jack Shulimson and published by Pickle Partners Publishing. This book was released on 2016-08-09 with total page 666 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This is the second volume in a series of chronological histories prepared by the Marine Corps History and Museums Division to cover the entire span of Marine Corps involvement in the Vietnam War. This volume details the Marine activities during 1965, the year the war escalated and major American combat units were committed to the conflict. The narrative traces the landing of the nearly 5,000-man 9th Marine Expeditionary Brigade and its transformation into the ΙII Marine Amphibious Force, which by the end of the year contained over 38,000 Marines. During this period, the Marines established three enclaves in South Vietnam’s northernmost corps area, I Corps, and their mission expanded from defense of the Da Nang Airbase to a balanced strategy involving base defense, offensive operations, and pacification. This volume continues to treat the activities of Marine advisors to the South Vietnamese armed forces but in less detail than its predecessor volume, U.S. Marines in Vietnam, 1954-1964; The Advisory and Combat Assistance Era.

Download or read book Report on the War in Vietnam as of 30 June 1968 Section 1 Report on Air and Naval Campaigns Against North Vietnam and Pacific Command wide Support of the War June 1964 July 1968 Section 11 Report on Operations in South Vietnam January 1964 June 1968 written by and published by . This book was released on 1969 with total page 418 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book The Cross of Gallantry written by Patrick M. Blake and published by . This book was released on 2017-07-15 with total page 336 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Cross of Gallantry is a story about Vietnam that is told at two levels - a personal journey for two young Americans, and a portrayal of the gross mistakes made by politicians and the Pentagon's civilian leadership. The personal story is about Frank O'Brian and Mike Morgan, two middle class Americans who join the Marine Corps in 1967 and go to Vietnam where they are thrown into the middle of bloody combat operations on the DMZ. Their story begins when they meet on a Greyhound bus, headed to Marine Corps boot camp at Parris Island. It continues through Marine Infantry Training Regiment (ITR) and their visits home to say goodbye to family and friends, finally entering the pipeline of replacement with thousands of other young Americans headed for Vietnam. They are assigned to 2nd Platoon, Charlie Company, 1st Battalion, 3rd Marines, the Battalion Landing Team (BLT) for the 3rd Marine Division. They join the battle-hardened Marines of Charlie Company, a brotherhood of veterans where most have earned at least one Purple Heart for combat wounds. Their story continues through a landing, search and destroy operations, building bunkers along the DMZ, crossing minefields, being hit with friendly fire, and engaging in close combat firefights. Their personal experience reflects on the overarching story of every troop involved in the Vietnam War. Four major military planning mistakes made in Washington and implemented in Vietnam had a deadly impact on American troops. First, the original strategy of the generals of the Joint Chiefs of Staff was offensive -- to win the war -- was ignored by President Johnson when he chose to adopt the political-military strategy promoted by Defense Secretary McNamara and his team of "whiz kids." They devised a defensive strategy, a "war of attrition", based on obtaining a "10-to 1 kill ratio." Second, the Pentagon orders the construction "McNamara's Wall" - across the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ), an "impenetrable" bunker system built across the entire DMZ. The third fatal mistake was the initiation of Operation Ranch Hand, the defoliation of the DMZ with Agent Orange. Air Force planes sprayed millions of gallons of the deadly poison on the vegetation across the DMZ. Finally, the M-16 rifles provided to combat units in Vietnam by the Pentagon jammed repeatedly. Gene Stoner, the designer of the M-16 and its manufacturer, Colt Manufacturing Company, warned the Pentagon that the Improved Military Rifle (IMR) propellant or gunpowder should be used in the ammunition for the M-16. The "whiz-kids" and Army Ordnance over-ruled Stoner and Colt, which caused the cause weapons to jam. Frank, Mike, Charlie Company, and the entire 3rd Marine Division struggled, fought, suffered, survived, and died in the hell created by these mistakes imposed by Washington. The Cross of Gallantry takes you into the combat units, on the ground in search and destroy operations, the futility of building bunkers, the tragedy of friendly fire casualties, and the insanity behind a foreign war of attrition. The political-military strategy was never designed to "win" the war in Vietnam, but combat troops still won countless battles. The Cross of Gallantry tells the stories of Marines who struggled, fought and died as brothers on the DMZ in Vietnam in 1967-68. For a longer description please visit www.thecrossofgallantry.com

Download or read book The Fall of Saigon written by Charles River Editors and published by . This book was released on 2019-09-27 with total page 64 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: *Includes pictures *Includes a bibliography for further reading The Vietnam War could have been called a comedy of errors if the consequences weren't so deadly and tragic. In 1951, while war was raging in Korea, the United States began signing defense pacts with nations in the Pacific, intending to create alliances that would contain the spread of Communism. As the Korean War was winding down, America joined the Southeast Asia Treaty Organization, pledging to defend several nations in the region from Communist aggression. One of those nations was South Vietnam. Before the Vietnam War, most Americans would have been hard pressed to locate Vietnam on a map. South Vietnamese President Diem's regime was extremely unpopular, and war broke out between Communist North Vietnam and South Vietnam around the end of the 1950s. Kennedy's administration tried to prop up the South Vietnamese with training and assistance, but the South Vietnamese military was feeble. A month before his death, Kennedy signed a presidential directive withdrawing 1,000 American personnel, and shortly after Kennedy's assassination, new President Lyndon B. Johnson reversed course, instead opting to expand American assistance to South Vietnam. Over the next few years, the American military commitment to South Vietnam grew dramatically, and the war effort became both deeper and more complex. The strategy included parallel efforts to strengthen the economic and political foundations of the South Vietnamese regime, to root out the Viet Cong guerrilla insurgency in the south, combat the more conventional North Vietnamese Army (NVA) near the Demilitarized Zone between north and south, and bomb military and industrial targets in North Vietnam itself. In public, American military officials and members of the Johnson administration stressed their tactical successes and offered rosy predictions; speaking before the National Press Club in November 1967, General Westmoreland claimed, "I have never been more encouraged in the four years that I have been in Vietnam. We are making real progress...I am absolutely certain that whereas in 1965 the enemy was winning, today he is certainly losing." Ripe for the plucking by North Vietnam, the country of South Vietnam found itself in an unenviable position in 1974. American forces rapidly withdrew, leaving only a few advisers and other personnel in place of the large forces deployed in the Southeast Asian theater until recently. President Gerald Ford and his staff, completely outmatched at the negotiations during the American retreat, parleyed from a position of weakness. The North Vietnamese gave essentially no useful concessions since they had no reason to, and they secured an American withdrawal without needing to remove their own advance units from South Vietnamese territory in return. Naturally, these facts reflected themselves in the morale of the two sides. South Vietnamese morale collapsed to catastrophic levels and remained there, though the ARVN (Army of the Republic of Vietnam) forces occasionally managed gallant, even heroic stands. The North Vietnamese, by contrast, felt confident of victory, from the highest to the lowest ranks. A mix of Marxist zeal and barely expressed but very real nationalism strengthened the resolve of the North Vietnamese's commanders and soldiers as well. A haunting fear remained among the North Vietnamese that the Americans would return, but each fresh success with no American response made this concern recede further into the background. As 1975 dawned, the NVA prepared for a final series of campaigns to conquer the territory of South Vietnam, leading to a chain of events that culminated with the fall of Saigon and some of the most infamous footage in 20th century America's history. The Fall of Saigon: The History of the Battle for South Vietnam's Capital and the End of the Vietnam War examines how the war ended.

Download or read book The Twenty five Year Century written by Quang Thi Lâm and published by University of North Texas Press. This book was released on 2001 with total page 449 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: For Victor Hugo, the nineteenth century could be remembered by only its first two years, which established peace in Europe and France's supremacy on the continent. For General Lam Quang Thi, the twentieth century had only twenty-five years: from 1950 to 1975, during which the Republic of Vietnam and its Army grew up and collapsed with the fall of Saigon. This is the story of those twenty-five years. General Thi fought in the Indochina War as a battery commander on the side of the French. When Viet Minh aggression began after the Geneva Accords, he served in the nascent Vietnamese National Army, and his career covers this army's entire lifespan. He was deputy commander of the 7th Infantry Division, and in 1965 he assumed command of the 9th Infantry Division. In 1966, at the age of thirty-three, he became one of the youngest generals in the Vietnamese Army. He participated in the Tet Offensive before being removed from the front lines for political reasons. When North Vietnam launched the 1972 Great Offensive, he was brought back to the field and eventually promoted to commander of an Army Corps Task Force along the Demilitarized Zone. With the fall of Saigon, he left Vietnam and emigrated to the United States. Like his tactics during battle, General Thi pulls no punches in his denunciation of the various regimes of the Republic, and complacency and arrogance toward Vietnam in the policies of both France and the United States. Without lapsing into bitterness, this is finally a tribute to the soldiers who fell on behalf of a good cause.

Download or read book Report on the War in Vietnam written by U. S. G. Sharp and published by . This book was released on 1969 with total page 386 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book In Persistent Battle written by Marine Corps University History Division and published by . This book was released on 2017-08-04 with total page 58 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The U.S. Marine Corps' war in Vietnam was a mixtureof large-scale conventional battles against mainViet Cong and North Vietnamese Army (NVA)units and smaller pacification operations designed to securethe South Vietnamese population from Communist insurgents.During the latter half of 1965, Marine forces foughtrepeated engagements against large Viet Cong units, mostnotably the 1st Viet Cong Regiment. The first battle, a fight inAugust to secure the area around Chu Lai called OperationStarlite, inflicted significant casualties upon this force. However,within just a few months, the Communist unit reconstituteditself, forcing the Marines to launch another operationto destroy the formation in December. The Marines codenamedthis action Operation Harvest Moon.Operation Harvest Moon has largely been overlooked inhistories of the Vietnam War. While Operation Starlite wasconsidered a major success and a clear demonstration of thesuperiority of America's conventional military forces comparedto the Viet Cong, Harvest Moon was less decisive.The following year, the Marine Corps' attention also beganto shift north toward the demilitarized zone (DMZ) as moreregular North Vietnamese combat forces put pressure on theMarines' area of operations. Consequently, the battle wasovershadowed by larger engagements.Nevertheless, the operation was important for a numberof reasons. Harvest Moon was the Marines' last large-scale,conventional operation of 1965 in Vietnam. Fought in thevalleys and hills between the city of Tam Ky and the inlandoutpost of Hiep Duc, it was the largest combined operationbetween Marine units and the South Vietnamese militaryto that date. Perhaps most importantly, the battle demonstratedmany of the frustrations and problems faced by allthe American forces in South Vietnam as they tried to defeatthe Viet Cong-led insurgency. The disparity in the fightingabilities between the Marines and South Vietnamese Armyunits hindered combat effectiveness. The lack of coordinationbetween the two forces, and between the Marine Corpsand U.S. Air Force, also led to heavy losses on the allied side.Enjoying logistical support from North Vietnam, the 1st VietCong Regiment was able to defeat South Vietnamese forceswhile largely evading American units.

Download or read book The War in the Northern Provinces written by Willard Pearson and published by Createspace Independent Publishing Platform. This book was released on 2015-11-12 with total page 126 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The North Vietnamese Army units deployed just north of the demilitarized zone in 1966 posed a serious and continuing threat to the security of Quang Tri and Thua Thien, the two northernmost provinces of South Vietnam. This is an account of the North Vietnamese attempts to seize control of these two provinces and of the response of the Free World Military Assistance Forces. The period covered by this narrative is from the spring of 1966 to the spring of 1968 and is the story, primarily, of U.S. Army units.

Download or read book Adventure to the New World written by Paul Nguyen and published by River Breeze Publishing. This book was released on 2014-10-28 with total page 194 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Adventure to the New World is an interesting real life story of a typical Vietnamese person who grew up in North Vietnam during the Vietnam War, had fortunately eluded numeral aerial attacks from the fierce American bombardments. By the time he was a teenage, he escaped out of Vietnam in a small sail boat and had traveled many days out at sea, heading for a better place to live. Luckily after a long and dangerous sea journey, and with the help of the kind-hearted people, he finally arrived in the Free World. The rich and moving story narrates his life during the war time in North Vietnam, the dangerous escaping journey, and how he started his life in the New World.

Download or read book Vietnam Studies The War In The Northern Provinces 1966 1968 Illustrated Edition written by Lieutenant General Willard Pearson and published by Pickle Partners Publishing. This book was released on 2014-08-15 with total page 128 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: [Includes 6 charts, 2 diagrams, 15 maps, and 17 illustrations] This book forms part of the “Vietnam Studies” series produced by various senior commanders who had served in the U.S. Army during the Vietnam War; each officer was chosen for their knowledge of the number of specialized subjects that were covered by the series. This volume of the Vietnam Studies series sees Lt-General Willard Pearson describe the struggles in the Quang Tri and Thua Thien provinces in the far north of Vietnam. Due to their proximity to the North Vietnamese border and the demilitarized zone they saw much fighting and during the years 1966-1968. The provinces were under constant threat and frequent incursions by the Northern Vietnamese forces ensured that American forces had much tough fighting even before the Tet Offensive in 1968 when the camp at Khe Sanh was besieged and the city of Quang Tri overrun. This is a study into some of the toughest fighting that the American troops ever undertook during the whole of their efforts in Vietnam.

Download or read book U S Marines in Vietnam written by Jack Shulimson and published by U.S. Government Printing Office. This book was released on 1997 with total page 828 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book was donated as a part of the David H. Hugel Collection, an archival collection of the Special Collections & Archives, University of Baltimore.

Download or read book The Easter Offensive Vietnam 1972 Invasion across the DMZ written by Albert Grandolini and published by Helion & Company Limited. This book was released on 2015 with total page 72 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: On 30 March 1972 the South Vietnamese positions along the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) that separated the North from South Vietnam were suddenly shelled by hundreds of heavy guns and multiple rocket launchers. Caught in a series of outposts of what was the former 'McNamara Line', the shocked defenders had just enough time to emerge from their bunkers at the end of the barrage before they were attacked by regular North Vietnamese Army divisions, supported by hundreds of armored vehicles that crashed though their defensive lines along the border. Thus began one of the fiercest campaigns of the Vietnam War but also one of the less well documented because by then most of the American ground forces had been withdrawn. Following on from the details of the downsizing of American forces and the setting up of the 'Vietnamization' policy, the build up of both the Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN) in the South and the People's Army of Vietnam (PAVN) in the North is discussed at length. A special emphasis is devoted to the study of the development the North Vietnamese armored corps that would spearhead the coming offensive. Consequently, the nature of the war changed dramatically, evolving from a guerrilla one into a conventional conflict. The South Vietnamese resistance shuddered, and then crumbled under the communist onslaught, putting Hue the ancient imperial capital at risk. It was only thanks to US airpower, directed by a small group of courageous American advisers, which helped to turn the tide. Under the command of a new capable commander, the South Vietnamese then methodically counterattacked to retake some of the lost ground. This culminated in the ferocious street fighting for Quang Tri. This first volume describes the combat taking place in the northern part of South Vietnam, and uses not only American archives but also Vietnamese sources, from both sides. The book contains 130 photos, five maps and 18 color profiles. Asia@War - following on from our highly successful Africa@War series, Asia@War replicates the same format - concise, incisive text, rare images and high quality color artwork providing fresh accounts of both well-known and more esoteric aspects of conflict in this part of the world since 1945.

Download or read book The War in South Vietnam written by John Schlight and published by Department of the Air Force. This book was released on 1988 with total page 436 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: United States Air Force in Southeast Asia. Documents the Air Force's support of the ground war in South Vietnam from 1965 to early 1968. Includes sections on the air campaign conducted during the Communists' siege of the Marine camp of Khe Sanh. Also contains several appendices, a glossary, and bibliographical notes.